St Giles Home Match Report

Runs, Runs and Drops!

Just a short match report this week I’m afraid but it would be difficult to try and write anything too positive from yesterdays performance other than more runs from the new run machine, James Weeks, nearly a maiden half century from Tom Spence (yes Tom, not Greg!) and a once in a lifetime legside catch from me whilst standing up to the wicket.

St Giles won the toss and decided to have a bat on probably the best day of the “summer” so far up at Southcombe and from the start they scored runs and we dropped catches. I’m not going to name names (there were far too many!) but this is one of the many things that we need to work on along with our energy in the field and our over rate, more on that later. We had a brief hiatus from the runs as Tom Spence took things into his own hands (quite literally) and firstly took a catch off Danny’s bowling for the first wicket and quickly followed that up in the next over with two wickets of his own, a return catch and a bowled to reduce the visitors to 22 for 3. A further wicket fell at 48 with a catch I am pretty sure I’ll never be able to replicate, standing up to young David Butler who was steaming down the hill, the St Giles batsman got a decent knick on the ball and for once I had used my feet to get across to the leg side and suddenly found the ball nestled in my gloves, I wasn’t sure how it had got there but was chuffed it was for both myself and David. This was when our problems really began though with the St Giles duo of Ian Jury and Nigel(?) Blight punishing any ball to or over the boundary that was slightly wide, over or under pitched and whilst we continued to drop catches the runs piled up as Danny chopped and changed the bowling trying to find a way break them and our heads dropped. Not for the first time this season our over rate was appallingly slow, even if we take the time off looking for the ball in the neighbouring fields we bowled too slowly and spent too long between overs which is something we must try to rectify in future weeks. AJ finally made the breakthrough just after Blight had reached his half century and kept plugging away and there was a constant flow of wickets and runs from then to the end of the innings. Jury finally went for a big hitting 113 in between the Boundy father and son of Steve and Rob, who also enjoyed finding the boundary in his innings. AJ picked up 3 wickets and Tom Spence also picked up 3 along with Danny and Davids singular wickets with St Giles finishing on a big 238 for 8 off of only 36 overs (yes 36 overs in 2.5 hours!!).

After a sumptuous tea we went out to bat knowing that it would take a huge effort to reach the large target and with a slightly fragile looking batting line up, James and I decided to try to ensure safety first. We saw off the two opening bowlers and slowly began knocking off the runs with James carrying on where he left off last week and it was now the St Giles fielders turn to drop a few catches with us both being put down once. We had made an opening stand of 56 before I played a lazy shot and guided the ball into the hands of Jury at first slip off the bowling of Steve Boundy. Tom Spence came in and the two A-level bound students (both will be missing the next month or so due to revision and exams – good luck guys!) looked comfortable against the changing bowlers and it was only a great return catch from Blight that finally got rid of James, just 6 short last weeks score, for 74, we seem to have found James preferred batting position now! Rodney came in never looked troubled and saw the game out with Tom, who decided to play a few cracking shots towards the end of the innings was unlucky not to get his first half century, finishing on 47 not out when the final 20 overs ended. Chulmleigh had scored a very respectable 181 for 2 from 41 overs (5 overs more in 20 minutes less time!!) to draw the match and remain unbeaten so far this season.